| | A.Jesus Himself. The night before He died, Jesus celebrated the Last Supper with His apostles. This was the Passover meal, a feast the Jewish people have always celebrated to remember the night God freed them from slavery tot the Egyptians. But Jesus was to give this celebration a whole new meaning. He chose the Last Supper as the way in which He would remain with His disciples forever.
At the meal, Jesus took some bread, broke it and said: ‘This is my Body, which will be given up for you ‘ (Mathew 26:26; Mark 14:2; Luke 22:20). These are the same words we hear spoken at every Mass. When the priest says them, he is acting in the person of Jesus; the bread and wine really do become body and blood of Christ. The Church calls this amazing change ‘Transubstantiation’. It is a mystery, beyond our understanding, but accepted in faith. Very simply, it means that when we come to Mass, we are in the presence of Jesus, just as much as His apostles were at the Last Supper.
|
